Eddie Cantor Opens Old Folks Home; Raises Generous Sum For Its Support

Written by staff at the Jewish Western Bulletin, Official Organ British Columbia Jewry

Eddie Cantor, the world-renowned comedian and humanitarian, rolled his saucer eyes into a $10,000 blue-plate bonanza for Vancouver's Jewish Old Folks Home during his stay here a week ago, and his golden personality won the hearts of the whole Jewish community.The diminutive jester who sang his way to fame from the shabby tenements on New York's east-end Ghetto, gave his time freely to philanthropy while in town for the Jubilee Show.

Early Sunday on July 7, the stage and screen star and his snowy-haired wife, Ida, officially opened the Home at 1190 West Thirteenth, which was gaily decked in flags for the occasion.

While more than 200 spectators cheered, Mr. Cantor was welcomed warmly by Irving Finkleman, honorary president of the Jewish Men's Cultural Club.
Smiling at the honor extended her, Mrs. Cantor snipped with a pair of scissors the tape opening the hallway to the Home.

She was presented with a box of chocolates as a gift from the Jewish Men's Cultural Club.

After an informal introduction the comedian shook hands with Hirch Herman, treasurer.

Mr. Herman then officially presented Mr. Cantor with a gold key to the Home, for which pleasure he had paid $2,000 as a donation.

Mr. Cantor cracked a few witty bon mots and added, in a serious vein:
"I am deeply grateful for being invited here. And I wish long life to the old folks who will spend a mellow old age behind these walls."

There were brief speeches from Ald. W.D. Greyell, Chairman of the City Social Service Committee; Percy Ward, Chief Inspector of Hospitals and Institutions, representing the Provincial Government, and Col. Hugh Allen, Executive director of the Community Chest and Welfare Association.

Speaking in Yiddish, Rabbi C. Ginsberg gave a short address. He was followed by Rabbi E.M. Levy, who extolled the need for respect for the aged in days when youth had taken over the helm.

In a colorful ceremony, Rabbi N.M. Patinsky gave his blessings to the occasion, as Mr. and Mrs. Cantor were shown through the smartly decorated, 16-room home.

Paying for the honor, Mr. and Mrs. Yampolsky carried the Torah, while Mrs. Vinsky applied the Mezuzah to the front door and Mrs. Osovsky applied one to the front room.

Later that evening the owl-eyed comic attended a "celebration dinner" in the Commodore Cabaret.

There the five hundred guests found him as unpretentious as a childhood pal, no high-hat mannerisms, and speaking with a radiant sincerity.

Within 30 minutes he raised $10,000 which will go toward paying the $13,000 remaining on the $30,000 cost of the Home.

Surprise of the evening was the sudden appearance of bluff, easy-going John Charles Thomas, the distinguished baritone star of the Jubilee Show.

He told the gathering he had won some money for catching the fourth largest fish in a tournament here, and to this, he added a $100 donation to aid in financing the Home.

Mr. Hirch Herman also gave a gift of $500, an addition to the $2,000 he had donated earlier.

On Friday, July 12, the indefatigable Mr. Cantor was present at a cocktail party presented in the Social Suite of Hotel Vancouver by Messrs. Florence, Herman and Finkleman.

More than 60 main principals of the Jubilee extravaganza were welcomed as guests. They included John Harkrider, New York and Hollywood producer; Lucio Agostini, Canadian composer and conductor; Wilbur MacCormack, New York choreographer; and Gordon Hilker and Leslie Allen, Vancouver show business impresarios.

While there, Mr. Cantor regalled some of the guests with memories of the days when he was a ragged kid on New York's sidewalks, and of his catapult rise to become a top-flight musical comedy star on Broadway for more than a quarter of a century.

Invoked were remembrances of those rough and impoverished days when, under his real name, Izzy Iskowitch, he was a ragamuffin on Hester Street who learned how to do impersonations of popular stage stars. So did he catch the few pennies that were tossed his way by passers-by.

There were memories of his first public appearance at an amateur night at Minor's on the Bowery and how he carried off first prize.

It was only a short jump from this immature stage appearance to a job as singing waiter in a Coney Island beer garden.

Then Gus Edwards heard him in 1912 and gave him a job in his "Kid Kabaret" in the same cast with George Jessel, Eddie Buzzell, George Price and Walter Winchell.

And there were memories of his vaudeville relationship with the late Will Rogers; of his marriage in 1914 to his childhood sweetheart, Ida Tobias, whose books he used to carry to school; of his fire-cracking style of pantomiming and singing blackface which he developed until he became the toast of Florenz Ziegfeld's "Kid Boots" and "Whoopie" on Broadway; the rage of the movies in the thirties with "Palmy Days" and "The Kid from Spain" and "Roman Scandals" and his splurge into radio posterity.

It was Eddie Cantor, the very tradition and walking history of show business, who came to Vancouver, and Vancouver's Jewry will not forget him soon.

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